Sign the Petition to

House Republicans

It's time for Republicans to take responsibility as sitting members of Congress to ensure the basic functioning of our government. And that means working to restore funding to the federal government by immediately passing the Senate’s routine and uncontroversial government funding bill, which already incorporates cuts demanded by Republicans.

How this will help

The way our government works shouldn't be dictated by a small minority of irresponsible extremists in Congress who are willing to blow up our economy in order to get their way.

When faced with an urgent need to fund the federal government to avoid a shutdown, House Republicans refused to simply extend governmental funding at current levels.

Instead, they gleefully took the entire economy hostage by insisting on a budget bill that contained a grab-bag of ideological demands and poison pills wholly unrelated to government spending. And they did this knowing that the Senate would refuse their ideologically driven demands.

We need to make sure Republican leaders hear Americans who want them to stop holding the economy hostage to their extremist ideology.

In essence, Republicans have been playing a high-stakes game of chicken with our country's well-being, hoping that Democrats blinked first and caved to their unreasonable demands.

After already compromising once by accepting painful budget cuts, the Senate Democrats thankfully refused to go along with further Republican hostage-taking, which would have only encouraged Republicans to do the same thing all over again when we face the need to raise the debt ceiling in a few short weeks.

So now, we find ourselves in a government shutdown that Republicans have caused, which will deal a body blow to our already-struggling economy and prevent the basic functioning of government services that help already-struggling members of our society. For example:

800,000 government employees will be furloughed, and a million more will be forced to continue working without pay.

Every national park and monument -- from Yosemite to the Statue of Liberty -- will be closed until the shutdown ends. And neighboring small businesses that rely on those visitors will face immediate hardship.Social Security will be unable to process new disability claims in a timely manner.The supplemental food assistance program for women, infants and children (WIC) could cease functioning.

Allowing this to happen because the Senate and the president refuse to agree to policies the American people soundly rejected at the ballot box is a totally unacceptable abdication of the Republicans' responsibility to ensure the basic functioning of government.

Sign this petition to Republican leaders in the House today. Tell them to stop holding the economy hostage.